


There Is No Try

by nagi_schwarz



Category: Criminal Minds, Twilight Series - All Media Types, X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-02
Updated: 2012-08-02
Packaged: 2018-05-26 06:46:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6228067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nagi_schwarz/pseuds/nagi_schwarz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Originally written for the lovely Minisinoo, beta'd by <a class="i-ljuser-profile" href="http://rotaryphones.livejournal.com/profile"><img class="i-ljuser-userhead"/></a><a class="i-ljuser-username" href="http://rotaryphones.livejournal.com/">rotaryphones</a>.  Edward Cullen learns a lesson in manners of the mind from two men with great minds. Mingles pre-series Twilight, Season 2 Criminal Minds, and X-Men from no specified timeline. Cookies to those who can identify all the sneaked-in anime references.</p>
            </blockquote>





	There Is No Try

Edward had never been one for carnivals, but Alice loved them and was dragging Jasper to all the booths, insisting he win her stuffed animals. By contrast, Rosalie and Emmet were head–to–head in seeing who could win the most prizes. Carlisle and Esme were keeping score for the competition, amused at their "children's" antics.

It was Edward's task — one he took on himself — to keep tabs on the carnies' minds, make sure they weren't suspicious of his siblings. He'd have brought his iPod and spent some quality time with Gershwin's _Rhapsody in Blue_ , but carnival music was the stuff of horror films for a reason, and he couldn't shut it out. He should have brought a book. The next best entertainment, however, was a human mind.

Edward closed his eyes and let the chorus of mental voices close in on him. He tracked the different voices, hunting for something interesting. Humans were often shallow, so the search — especially in a crowd like this — took time.

_…Ne, Heero, my turn with the gun!_

_Crawford–sama, Farf ate my cotton candy…_

_…Maybe if I give Risa this white ribbon —_

_Dammit! Momiji's a bunny again…_

Edward skimmed past a group of foreign tourists whose thoughts were a jumble of unintelligible words, and then a stream of thoughts caught his attention.

_…Six elevator–related deaths per year, and over ten thousand injuries requiring hospitalization. I was trapped in an elevator with Morgan, and all I wanted was Hotch to rescue me. Aaron Hotchner, like A.E. Hotchner, the biographer. The SWAT system is front sight, trigger press, follow through. I always fail on the follow through._

Edward opened his eyes and scanned the crowd, keeping track of the voice, and — there. At the shooting booth beside Rosalie and Emmet were two young men. One was built like a football player and carried himself confidently. He had smooth dark skin and an easy grin and probably charmed women without effort. Morgan, his name was, according to the light–speed thoughts of the man beside him.

"Come on, don't you want to win something cute and fluffy for a lovely lady?" Morgan's grin was teasing.

The younger man was taller, rail–thin, and carried himself as if he were trying to take up as little space as possible. "What lovely ladies? After our last case, I don't think JJ, Prentiss, or Garcia would enjoy a prize from a carnival game."

 _Reid, no wonder you can't get a date._ It was a flash of memory, a sly dig that Morgan had meant to be harmless but that had stung like battery acid at the time. It was accompanied by a slew of poetry, a renaissance ballad, a conversation betwixt Death and a lady, visualized straight off the yellowing pages of an antique leather–bound volume. It was followed by a list of statistics on results one found after typing the word "death" into a search engine.  
The sheer amount of information in the man's mind was awe–inspiring, and it formed a curious undercurrent to his conversation with Morgan.

Morgan held out the cap rifle. "Come on — hit me with your best shot."

"I don't hit what I aim for," Reid protested, but he shouldered up the rifle with decent enough technique.

Morgan clapped him on the back. "It's just a game, Reid."

 _It's never a game when a federal agent picks up a firearm,_ Reid thought, but he fired anyway. _You don't need a gun to kill a man, but it helps. Look at Ruby Ridge — a woman shot in the back while holding her baby. A question that sometimes drives me hazy: am I or are the others crazy?_

The shot missed.

"C'mon, Reid, your shooting's getting better. I know you can make the hit." Morgan stood back to watch Reid's posture.

Edward wondered if there was a way to steer Reid back to the poetry. If he had whole poems memorized, reading his mind would be like reading a book. But Reid's mind was spinning forward, egged on by Morgan's words.

 _I do my best work under intense terror. Tobias Hankel — in the chest. Doesn't take an eidetic memory to never forget the scent of cordite and blood. Theirs not to make reply, theirs not to reason why, theirs but to do and die. Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori._ Reid fired the last three shots in rapid succession and hit all three ducks.

Morgan whooped. "See? My man!"

Reid set down the rifle. "I didn't hit all five." _Sixty percent is better than fifty percent would allow me to pass my firearm qualification would save me from looking like a teacher's assistant._

Morgan flagged down the carnie. "Let's get a prize for my man. What kind of animal, Reid?"

_Animals. Humans are animals, homo sapiens sapiens, 96% DNA similarity to chimpanzees —_

Beside them, Rosalie and Emmet were squabbling over who was the better shot.  
Edward was taking a risk, but some Tennyson was precisely what he wanted, so he telepathically whispered, oh–so–softly:

_On either side the river lie_  
Long fields of barley and of rye,  
That clothe the wold and meet the sky;  
And thro' the field the road runs by  
To many–tower'd Camelot;  
And up and down the people go,  
Gazing where the lilies blow  
Round an island there below,  
The island of Shalott. 

"Stop right now," someone said.  
Edward had to force himself not to automatically leap out of reach of the man beside him, who was in a wheelchair. He was older, bald, and spoke with a smooth English accent.

"Pardon?" Edward asked.

"It's rude to eavesdrop on someone else's private thoughts," the man said. His expression was politely blank, but his dark eyes were full of reproach.

Edward blinked, but suspicion was creeping up his spine. The man was mortal, the rhythm of his heartbeat lulling, enticing.

He met Edward's gaze squarely, and when he spoke again it was in Edward's mind.

_For someone so powerful, you lack control. You listen to others and broadcast for others to hear you. Such indiscriminate use of so powerful a gift is dangerous._

Edward wondered how much the man knew, how much he'd heard. He drew away from Reid's mind and approached the man beside him. But his mind was silent, walled. His  
consciousness burned beacon-bright, but it was a barricaded fortress. Edward circled the walls, seeking a weakness or a point of entrance.

"That's not very polite," the man said.

Edward had no clue how strong this man was, but even if he _was_ in a wheelchair, he could be a threat; Edward had heard enough about the Volturi to know mental strength could far outstrip any preternatural physical prowess. Time to dredge up some Esme–enforced manners.

"Pardon me. It's a rare occasion that I find myself in the presence of another who shares my particular…talent. I do apologize, Mr…?"

"Xavier. Professor Charles Xavier."

Edward inclined his head politely. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Professor. I am Edward Cullen."

"Ah. Carlisle Cullen's boy."

Edward blinked again to hide his surprise. "You know Carlisle?"

Professor Xavier's gaze darkened. "Oftentimes people of my particular skills are without aid from more public medical services."

"I'm glad Carlisle was so generous," Edward said.

"As am I."

"I don't deliberately read people's minds." Edward shoved his hands into his pockets. He was stung by Professor Xavier's accusations that he was rude. "I can't help it. I can just _hear_ what people are thinking, whether I want to or not." And he had seen some things in other people's minds that he'd rather have never known. He nudged the shields around Professor Xavier's mind experimentally. "I can't hear your mind,  
though."

"Because I maintain shields. It keeps others out, and I am insulated from the temptation to pry." Professor Xavier met Edward's gaze squarely. Then he smiled faintly. "Besides, you lose a certain _joie de vivre_ when life has no mystery."

"The human mind isn't a mystery — it's banal. And mystery is overrated." If Edward had wanted fortune cookie advice, he'd have bought a damned cookie.

"It's human compassion to learn someone's uniqueness through companionship and interaction," Professor Xavier said.

Edward closed his eyes. "I'm beyond compassion for humans," he said. He really was. He didn't want to hurt them, had worked so long to avoid killing him, but most of them were…mice to his mountain lion.

Professor Xavier's expression darkened. "If that's what you believe, then your soul is lost. But you have a very powerful gift, and the reckless way in which you abuse it will cost you in the end."

Perhaps Professor Xavier could comprehend the horror and cruelty humans played out for each other in their minds every day, but Edward had been alive longer, seen more — seen a human's mind at death and known that it was little better than in the full flush of life. Minds were toys.

As if Professor Xavier had read Edward's mind — and Edward liked to think he would sense if the man had — the Professor said, "As one who is stronger, you have a responsibility to protect, not disdain."

Edward suspected his telepathy might be weaker than the Professor's, but the man was naïve if he didn't know by now that most minds weren't worth protecting. Once in a great while, Edward found one worth plundering. He'd found one today, and he wasn't about to let it go unsearched.

Rosalie and Emmet were at another game booth, one that inspired them to have a heated argument about who was a better pitcher. Reid and Morgan were at a new booth as well, one that involved darts and balloons. Edward glanced at Xavier. How rude was it to listen to a mind that spun so fast, so full of so much? Reid's mind was soft but unquiet, and Edward was intrigued.

_JJ always beats me at darts. She was beating everyone at darts the night we got the call for the Hankel case. It was easier to retreat from the rest of the team, sit with strangers and trot out my memory as a one–trick pony._

Reid tested the weight of each dart in his hand; they were obviously weighted irregularly, but he wasn't sure what to do about it.

Poetry. Edward wanted poetry. Maybe some Eliot? He whispered to Reid's mind once more.

_We are the hollow men_  
We are the stuffed men  
Leaning together  
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas! 

The reply was lightning fast, like a flash of midday sun across a midnight desert.

_This is the way the world ends_  
This is the way the world ends  
This is the way the world ends  
Not with a bang but a whimper. 

Success was immediately followed by panic, a flash of memory of Reid cinching a scarf around a boy's bleeding wrist, cinching a belt around the boy's other wrist.

_Edward, stop what you're doing. Manipulating someone else's mind against his will is an unconscionable violation. And it's dangerous for you._

Professor Xavier's voice crashed against Edward's mind like a tidal wave, but it was no use. Edward was caught in Reid's memories.

_Someone cinching a belt around my right arm, the sting of a needle and the slow burn, like lust, like death, of dilaudid in my veins. I don't want it. I don't want it! I didn't do anything!_

Morgan's brow furrowed. "Reid, man. You okay?"

"Just a headache." But his hands were shaking. He handed Morgan the last of the darts. "I think I should sit down."

"Too much coffee?" Morgan asked.

 _Not enough opiates._ Reid nodded and stepped away from the booth, sank down on the nearest wrought iron bench.

Edward was shaking too, from the unexpected thrill of a rush of crystal clear memories.  
_Edward, stop what you're doing,_ Professor Xavier said. _You risk his sanity as well as your own._

 _His mind is —_ Amazing. Intoxicating.

 _His mind is his own,_ Professor Xavier said. His gaze was dark, almost angry.

_Your blatant disregard for the privacy of the human mind is inexcusable. That boy's secrets are his own._

_Humans are all the same,_ Edward shot back. _Humans have no secrets. Their thoughts are iterations of someone else's desires, emotions, and stupid decisions._ Edward circled Reid's mind, searching for an opening, for some way to get what he wanted.

_Edward, that kind of cruel apathy is —_

_Is why humans make such easy prey. Humans are annoying. It's a blessing for them if I find them interesting._

Edward tried for another poem, but Reid was still hurtling headlong down the spiral of his memories, and Edward was hanging on beside him.

The smell hit him first. Fish hearts and livers. Then a single bulb swinging overhead. And death standing beside him.

In the background, a man was yelling, but he sounded as though he was very far away.

_Edward, disengage now!_

Reid's mind was awash with fear. Reid hadn't felt fear like this, not since he'd watched Nathan try to bleed to death. But this fear was worse and — oh. Pain. In his foot, his head, his arm. He'd been beaten, drugged.

The pain in his chest was from — CPR. The unsub had brought him back. Why? Because he was a tool. He was useful. His mind was useful. This man thought he could see into men's minds, but he couldn't. He'd heard the rumors at the Bureau, about agents beyond the norm, but he was just a profiler. He couldn't read minds no matter how hard he tried.

 _Edward, what have you done?_ That man's voice again, less angry, more horrified.

Another man in the background.

"Dammit Reid, when was the last time you ate?"

This wasn't the first time he'd had a gun in his face, but each click of the firing pin, the cock of the hammer — statistics for death skittered across his mind. One in six — 16.667%. One in five — 20%. One in four — 25%. One in three — 33.333%. The unsub wanted a name — any name. Someone to kill, or he'd kill Reid instead. Who would understand? Four syllables tripped off his tongue, and the roar of a gunshot in his ears might have been the last thing he ever heard. 100%. That shot would have killed him.

The memories rushed forward, and then Reid was on his knees with a three–foot shovel, digging his own grave. For the first time in his life he was glad he was so physically weak — fiercely glad, because he'd be digging forever and the unsub would just have to gut him.

“You did what you had to do, good people are alive because of it, and I'm proud of you.”

That's what Gideon had said the first time Reid ever killed someone in the line of duty.  
Gideon, Reid's father, Reid's mentor, the one who promised him those words were all he'd need to get past the memory of murder. But Reid never stopped wondering. _Am I a good person?_

He stopped digging, but the unsub was impatient, drew his knife. Voices in the background dragged the unsub's attention away.

_No. I'm just a brilliant mind with a gun._

Reid scooped up the discarded revolver, aimed at Tobias Hankel's chest, and fired.

Edward slammed back into his own body.

When he opened his eyes, he was confused. Where was the unsub? He'd been on his knees in a cemetery — and then he came back to himself.

He'd been lost in someone else's mind.

Alice and Professor Xavier hovered over him, Alice's expression impassive, the Professor's expression a mixture of fury and fear. Edward sat up. When had he fallen?

"What happened?"

"Carlisle's got a handle on it," Alice said.

Edward saw Carlisle and Esme kneeling beside Reid, who was pale and shaking.

"You see now, why I warned you away from him?" Professor Xavier asked.

Alice stepped back. "I'll go handle the others." And she walked away.

"Will he be all right?" Edward watched Reid shrink back from Carlisle's touch, bat Morgan's hands away before he could fuss.

"As well as he can be, with everything going on in his mind." Professor Xavier's expression was grim. "Why would you ask him to relive that?"

Edward shook his head, still slightly dazed. He could still hear Reid's voice in the back of his mind, rattling off statistics about CPR outside a hospital. Effective only seven percent of the time. "I didn't ask him to — "

"You tromped about in his mind, ran roughshod over his memories, and didn't think you would trigger the worst in him?" Professor Xavier sighed and sat back, hands folded neatly on his lap. "The mind is not a computer, Edward. Especially not his."

When Edward closed his eyes, he was on his knees in cold dirt, digging his own grave. He opened his eyes again and saw Reid toying with the stuffed animal he'd won. Carlisle was asking him questions, doctor gentle, and Reid nodded.

"Don't worry, Doc," Morgan said, and flashed his charming grin. "We'll take good care of our pretty boy."

"We?" Reid echoed.

"I'm calling Garcia," Morgan said.

Edward caught the fear in Morgan's mind. Reid had died once — the team couldn't lose him forever. Reid was their baby brother, already so fragile despite his brilliant mind. Then he jerked his consciousness away from Morgan's, lowered his gaze guiltily so he wouldn't have to meet Professor Xavier's disapproving stare.

Carlisle smiled. "Less coffee, more food," he told Reid.

Reid nodded. "Yes, sir." And his mind churned with fear once more. _Am I losing my mind? Will they put me in the same hospital as my mother?_

"Minds are private for a reason," Xavier said, and Edward's focus shifted back to him. "You nearly robbed him of his sanity and lost your own."

"I didn't realize —" Edward began.

"You lack the necessary control to approach another's mind as you did," Professor Xavier said, "and you are unwilling to abide by the necessary precautions to protect others from your meddling. Keep your mind to yourself and grant others the privacy that is attendant to human dignity. Minds are not playgrounds, Edward, and your ability to read them makes you no better than others. Remember that."

The man's outright hostility shocked Edward, but then another sharp spike of fear from Reid doused his anger.

_Gideon would never let them do that to me — not the same hospital as my mother. Gideon would put me down with his service revolver, wouldn't he?_

Edward had to force himself away from Reid's mental voice once more, from the tantalizing wisps of fear and pain laced in his thoughts. He met the Professor's gaze and saw a different emotion there, one that looked almost like pity.

"You did what everyone else does to him," Professor Xavier said softly. "You used him for his mind."

Morgan had bundled Reid into a coat and was herding him toward the parking lot. Edward watched them go and wondered why he felt like he'd almost committed murder.

* * *

In the weeks that followed, Edward did his best to ignore the cacophony of minds at school, but it was difficult. Sophomores had the most inane, entertaining, laugh-out-loud ridiculous thoughts. But Edward had to constantly pull away to ignore what he heard.

One afternoon in the week before junior prom, the level of inanity was beyond Edward's powers of perseverance, so he skipped his afternoon classes and went to the local diner to pretend to drink a cup of coffee and pretend to read The Inferno.

" _Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate,_ " a man said.

Edward's head came up sharply.

Reid stood before him, hands in his pockets, a leather satchel at his side. The holster of a gun peeked out from beneath his blazer.

"Pardon?" Edward asked, but he could translate the Italian perfectly, even if he hadn't been reading Dante.

_Abandon all hope, ye who enter here._

"Charles Xavier is one of my correspondence philosophy professors," Reid said. "And I learn things, in the Bureau, that others don't always hear. I've been attacked before; yours was hardly the worst —"

"It wasn't an attack! I didn't mean —" The book slipped from Edward's grasp, but his lightning reflexes saved it.

Reid nodded solemnly. "Of course you didn't. But my mind was entertaining, wasn't it? The rush of knowledge at your disposal — it was fun, knowing you could take anything you wanted, wasn't it? My eidetic memory made for a good distraction, right? All the useless trivia in my brain was finally worth something."

Edward frowned. Something was wrong. Reid's mind was abuzz with information — anger, statistics, case theories, victimology — but it was clouded, running on altered tracks.

"I'm sorry," Edward said finally.

"Someone always is." Reid's smile was crooked, half despairing. Apropos of nothing, he began to recite:

" _And down the river's dim expanse_  
Like some bold seer in a trance,  
Seeing all his own mischance —  
With a glassy countenance  
Did she look to Camelot.  
And at the closing of the day  
She loosed the chain, and down she lay;  
The broad stream bore her far away,  
The Lady of Shalott."

His voice was gentle, beautiful, haunted.

Edward knew the answer all too well.

" _Heard a carol, mournful, holy,_  
Chanted loudly, chanted lowly,  
Till her blood was frozen slowly,  
And her eyes were darken'd wholly,  
Turn'd to tower'd Camelot.  
For ere she reach'd upon the tide  
The first house by the water–side,  
Singing in her song she died,  
The Lady of Shalott."

The corner of Reid's mouth curled up in an expression too bitter to be a smile, and Edward wondered what he hadn't seen in the man's mind.

"I guess you didn't need my memory after all," he said. He reached up and brushed a lock of hair out of his eyes. "Be careful, Edward Cullen."

"I will," he said.

"I doubt it."

"I'm trying."

" _Do, or do not_. There is no try." Reid's smile turned weak. " _I am half sick of shadows._ "

When he turned and walked away, Edward could hear the clink of little glass bottles in his satchel.

Reid must have heard the sound too, for he reached into the satchel to adjust them, and Edward sensed a spike of guilt and fear in his mind, but he forced himself to pull away before he pried deeper than common courtesy would allow. He didn't need the vast libraries in Reid's mind, and Reid didn't need his arrogant assumptions.

* * *

"Who's that?"

"Isabella Swan, Chief Swan's daughter."

Edward studied her, eased closer to her mind —

And heard nothing there.

Relief flooded through him, and he smiled.  



End file.
